As this life
pounds
pulses
first slow,
second fast
Dreams big
then cowers.
I contract
I expand
in moments of
meeting.
In night visions
brutal and free.
This life breaks.
This life
breathes
this life born.

A few thoughts on parenting after a rough week.

There is too much, it is never done. I am never enough.
It does not suit my personality to work hard at something, and not feel like an "A" student. I am not a bad parent, but I am not great.
I feel terribly alone and desperate for my self. My fantasy day right now is not getting out of bed, all day all night.
No parent is ever enough for their child. No parent ever gets is just right.
I feel myself being broken, just ever so slightly. Like at work when I hit my head with the same bureaucratic baloney brick. Eventually you will break, you will bend. The brick does not.
My eldest has an exceptional memory. This concerns me- does he have to remember my temper tantrum and hypocrisy?
I have very little room to criticize any parent. Moral high ground is rare real estate.
How they can want even more of me?!!!!! Why are they complaining, again?!! whhhiiiiiiiiiiinng sucks!
So loud. SO LOUD! SHHHHHHHHH!! I am screaming "shush", what the hell is wrong with me?
Please please please let this get easier.
Is it this hard for everyone? Am I being a big goddamn baby?
Sometimes feel as if I am walking uphill endlessly. Oh- I think I am whining. Damn, am I to blame for that to? Wanna understand karma? Have kids. Instant mirror of your worst behaviors. Awesome.
To the kids it must appear as if I just suddenly blow up or break down. To me it is a container bursting, a knife's pressure that finally breaks through skin. Too much of this, not enough of that until there is no more. No buffer, no patience, no bend. Just break.

I feel obligated here to reassure you that I love my children and I am not in need of an intervention. Although, I would be lying if I told you I hadn't considered medication.

PS- today has been a good day or wouldn't have even been able to complete this online whine.

What do I think I am doing?

I know that most people working in non-profits are wonderful, hardworking, passionate folks with the best of intentions. Of late, however, I have started to question non-profits as a sector, as a professional route, and as a social institution. Sitting at a conference, I started to wonder why there was so much (decent paying) work for "us" to do for "them". Couldn't we just give them the money and go home? How do I get flown to conferences and there are hungry children? How does this make any sense?

BIG money and effort goes into non-profit/charitable organizations:

• In 2004, public charities reported nearly $1.1 trillion in total revenues and just over $1.0 trillion in total expenses. (Source: The Urban Institute, National Center for Charitable Statistics, Core Files 2004)
• Public charities reported $1.9 trillion in total assets in 2004. (Source: The Urban Institute, National Center for Charitable Statistics, Core Files 2004)
• Charitable contributions by individuals, foundations and corporations reached $248.52 billion in 2004, an increase of 2.3 percent from 2003 after adjusting for inflation. (Source: Giving USA 2005

If we invested this kind of money in excellent education, community safety nets, and public health--- how much work would we still have left to do? How much of the work that we do is a band-aid for a greater social problem that could be either prevented or changed with a shift in consciousness and resources? Some of these band-aids might be complicit in keeping a problem at arms length. We can give out money and not have to change how we live. But can a giant social problem truly die from a thousand tiny cuts? Can't we do it better? Smarter?

For example, how much money is spent by non-profits meeting the needs of people who are homeless? (I tried to find this, but couldn't with a decent google search). I know that these organizations work with dedication and passion on shoe-sting budgets that rarely meet demand. However, what if their collective efforts are not greater than the sum of their parts? Turns out they aren't!!

This is from an article "Cutting The Cost Of Homelessness In U.S." on Forbes.com from 2006 ---

There are approximately 3 million homeless people in the United States at any one time. Of these, some 150,000-300,000, or 5% to 10%, are "chronically homeless." ...who account for the vast majority of shelter space and bulk of the health costs. The 150,000 chronically homeless people in the United States cost $10.95 billion per year in public funds. If these individuals were all permanently housed, the expense would be expected to fall to $7.88 billion.

ARGGG!!! WHY DON'T WE DO THIS??!!!

This makes me want to pack up and go home. I could make a cozy little career in the non-profit sector or higher education out of my experience and education.Working in non-profits and service learning has given me direction and purpose for about10 years. When the weight of the world of troubles and oppression sent me into a fetal-position (literally), it was the only thing that brought me out. But I have this growing feeling that it is not enough anymore. Or maybe I am just tired, and this is a phase, and maybe I just need to readjust my own attitude and get back to work. We'll see...

I want to be a social entrepreneur when I grow up!

I am researching non-profit related items for my class, and I have decided to use my blog to keep track of my internet adventures and findings. My goal has been to use my class assignments for my MPA classes to help me figure out this "green cemetery" concept that just won't leave me alone. It was not until I was tagged for a "25 random things about me" on Facebook that I connected it to my other longstanding dream of a off the grid cooperative housing unit that has both private space and common space, with shared major appliances, etc...

I have been considering that a green burial site could be a source of income for a conservation, environmental non-profit, and wondered if that could even work. I struggled to term search on google for what I was looking for. My starting point was to follow up on an article I read somewhere, some years ago about a non-profit that escaped the trap of grants by producing a commodity that funded their operations. (The article stuck with me because I have experienced the time and mission sucking effects of grants.) I did find a reference to the trend of " nonprofits being more businesslike and for-profits doing a lot of corporate social responsibility" at Stanford Social Innovation Review, but it wasn't very revealing. This is an area I will need to explore more later.

I did find some interesting financial resources of information and networking for non-profits...

- National Council of Nonprofits
- The Chronicle of Philanthropy
- Idaho Nonprofit Center
- National Center for Charitable Statistics

I finally stumbled upon "social entrepreneurship" and it was a revelation.

"Social entrepreneurship is the work of a social entrepreneur. A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. "

I felt like a lost sheep that had found its flock. Then of course, I found my flock's online home, Changemakers, which in their own words is

"... building the world's first global online "open source" community that competes to surface the best social solutions, and then collaborates to refine, enrich, and implement those solutions. Changemakers begins by providing an overarching intellectual framework for collaborative competitions that bring together individual social change initiatives into a more powerful whole".

Open source, collaborative, competition to fix things that are broken in our world. Yes! Sign me up! So I did.

I am not sure where this all will take me, but I feel as if I have the wind at my back.

Expanding SCHIP

I stumbled upon some news of SCHIP expanding on the federal level. Providing kids with health insurance just seems like the best thing to do, but there are some finer points and complications that I had not considered. What do you think?
SCHIP Expansion Underway
US House Votes To Expand,Enlarge SCHIP Through FY13
SCHIP: For The Big Hospitals, Not The Children?